Welcome to the Home Page for the RESNA Student Design Competition. This site, a joint project of RESNA and the AAC-RERC, contains student presentations that were accepted for the 2010-2014 RESNA conferences, and provides information for upcoming competitions.

RESNA 2015 will be held from June 10-14, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. The format for submissions for the Student Design Competition will remain the same as in past years, so the information on this site can be used to plan and prepare submissions.

In 2014, eight semi-finalist teams won an all-expense paid trip for two team members to the RESNA Annual Conference, which was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. At the conference, students had the opportunity to present their designs, meet with developers, and network with assistive technology professionals. The semi-finalists were announced at the conference; every member of the semi-finalist teams received a free annual membership to RESNA (a $150 value), which enabled them to continue to network actively with other professionals and participate in RESNA events.

Also, in addition to the 8 awards described above, The Center for the Translation of Rehabilitation Engineering Advances and Technology (TREAT) partnered with RESNA to offer an award, “Technology Most Likely to Become Commercially Available,” to one of five finalists in the annual RESNA Student Design Competition. The award comes with a $500 cash prize to the winning team and an invitation for one team member to spend 3 weeks at the TREAT facilities in Lebanon, NH working with TREAT staff and resources to further develop the winning design and move it towards commercialization. The 2014 recipient of the TREAT award was Day to Day Prosthetic from the student team at the University of Toledo.

The client is an adolescent with Morquio syndrome. Due to his limited mobility, he uses a wheelchair and requires assistance to transport and set up his DJ equipment. The goal is to construct a device that allows him to do this independently.

To prevent injury to the ear and damage to the hearing aid, we took the hearing aids off the ears and placed them in a protective clamshell pouch that could be attached to the front of the player’s uniform.

The goal of our project, Sticky Solution, was to create a device that enables employees with disabilities at OE Enterprises, Inc. to separate and linearly apply an accurate, wrinkle-free piece of sealing tape to an insulation foam.

The goal of creating the Stickler was to enable individuals with arthritis to independently access public washrooms by providing a way to secure public washroom stall doors, regardless of the type of built-in lock.

Mike Schubert, Holly Liang, Caitlin Makatura, Bryan Solomon, Julie Walker Abstract Although recent improvements in prosthetic technology allow a user to control an upper limb prosthesis with some dexterity, a method for receiving proprioceptive feedback (the feeling of body position) has not yet been implemented in commercial hardware. The user must rely on visual feedback [...]

Our design addresses three obstacles to prosthetic care in the developing world: cost, time, and location. Compared to current solutions, RightFit is less expensive and faster to fabricate, and it does not need specialized equipment. Our device is adaptable and efficient, with a wide potential sphere of influence in the developing world and beyond.

Sarah Roberts, Robert Fields, Casey Shumberger, Alexis Bertram ABSTRACT Mobilizing intensive care unit patients has been shown to improve their health outcomes by shortening their healing time and length of hospital stay. However, getting these critically ill patients up and moving can be a challenge. Through our work with ICU staff from the Medical University [...]

Jeffery Flowerday, Richard Dzionara-Norsen, Jonathan Nguyen, Kassandra Schlott ABSTRACT To those who are able bodied, sailing is often seen as a sport that people with disabilities cannot participate in. However, all over the world people are sailing not only for fun, but also for competition. This task continues to be difficult, especially with people who [...]

Kyra Wilson-Houck, Ana Allen, Joanna Dzionara-Norsen, Dan Sawicki, Beverly Liriano ABSTRACT The purpose of this project is to redesign the handles of a standard axilla crutch to feature a connection mechanism which is easy for users with lower extremity injuries to control. The Una-Crutch is a device that is added onto the standard axilla [...]